


i always fall for confidence (your compliments look good on me)

by blushandbooks



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Library, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, almost 10K words of juke flirting, just juke fluff bc what is better???, minor Willex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-16 10:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28829907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blushandbooks/pseuds/blushandbooks
Summary: julie molina did not expect luke patterson to work in the public library - nor did he expect her to come in one day to bring her brother to storytime.but hey. it ends up being the precise push they needed in the end.
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 117
Kudos: 423





	i always fall for confidence (your compliments look good on me)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ephemeral_Joy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ephemeral_Joy/gifts).



> title is from say my name by odesza!!! the RAC remix specifically is a bop. i listened to the song for the first time in awhile while writing this and thought it was a vibe.
> 
> this is gifted to ophelia because i told her about this au idea and she thought i was kidding so when i sent her snippets she was like "wait publish this right now" and i was like "ok" and now two weeks later it is finally out.  
> and as always shoutout to other chloe for just being generally encouraging and awesome

At first glance, nobody would expect Luke Patterson to enjoy going to the library. He gives off such an intense bad-boy, cocky energy that one would imagine means he doesn’t like anything scholastic-

But those stereotypes are meant for the movies. 

Luke Patterson, jean chains and sleeveless shirts and all, loves the library. 

He thrives off of loud volumes and concert venues, but when it comes to the screams that occasionally fill his own home and the chaos in his mind, there is no better place for him to clear his mind than the library. 

His mom was in a book club, which meant that as a child, he would occasionally be dragged along on her trips to pick up the next club read. As Emily took her unwavering attention off of him for a half hour and gave him the chance to roam around to his heart’s content, he found another home in the dusty alcove in the window and the head librarian who would slip him lollipops upon his exit. 

At 12, he requested that his mom go run errands after checking out her book club book and leave him at the library for another hour. Those hours were spent with books about music, mythology textbooks, or his songbook in his lap where new lyrics would be born. 

All that time, he longed for music. When he was 13 and finally got a smartphone, he spent some allowance on earbuds. 

At 14 years old, he started volunteering there. The librarians treated him like a son, letting him update their social media accounts and shelving books. It was a few months into his volunteering there that he came up with a little song to memorize the Dewey Decimal System, which he could be heard humming in the dead silent lull.

That was when the librarians got a bright idea. 

Luke was soon delegated to spend some of his volunteering time in the Kid’s Corner, strumming his acoustic guitar to any kids who will listen to songs about books, reading, and all of the cool stuff that they can do in the library. For him, it was a way to play music that his parents couldn’t be mad about -- he’s volunteering, with children, at a library. 

If there wasn’t a guitar slung across his back when he arrived every week, he would be a model son. 

Years passed, and his volunteering evolved into a part-time job. 

Of course, with those passing years came Luke rising the ranks of high school, and forming a band with the only people who knew about his other responsibility at the library: Reggie, Alex, and Bobby. He took less hours at the library to be able to spend time with the band and on school, but he could never completely stop working. 

It was the only place he had to truly clear his head. 

So, his schedule changed from five days a week to three: Saturday and Sunday early afternoons, and Wednesdays after school. Sundays and Wednesdays, he would read or sing to the visiting kids; and Saturdays would be silently spent shelving books or organizing displays.    
  
(He worked out that system with the head librarian, who understood better than his own family that he had gigs on Friday nights that would hurt his voice and make it hard for him to perform in any way the next day.)

People from school scarcely ever came into the public city library since almost anything they needed could easily come from the school’s library. 

But one Sunday, he supposes, he just got lucky. 

\--

Julie Molina had probably gone to the public library once, when she was a kid, and her mom had just wanted to show it to her since they had not gone in there together before. She recalled the towering bookshelves, the kind eyes of the employees, and the cozy nook in a window that was occupied by a hyperactive boy with floppy brown hair--

But she hasn’t gone since that one time. 

(Come on, don’t look at her like that, she hasn’t needed to go! The school library is more convenient and has everything she needs.)

The one thing that the city library does have, however, is the chance to get her brother out of the house for a little while on the weekends. Her dad brought Carlos on Sundays and sometimes on Wednesdays -- something about a guy who reads and sings to them -- and peace would fall on the house for the brief time that her little brother was gone. 

“Mija, can you do me a favor and go to the library with your brother today?” 

(Cue screaming in exhausted teenaged sister.)

“What? Why?”

“I know it’s not exactly what you want to do on a Sunday, but a client just asked me to rush their order, which means that I have a lot more photos to touch-up than I was planning. If you could just bring him for the hour and do your homework at the library, I would really appreciate it.”

Julie would do anything for her dad, but another whiny question can’t help but fall from her tongue:

“Why can’t he just skip a day?”

“‘Skip a day?’” A younger, shocked voice exclaims from the top of the staircase. Moments later, Carlos is barreling down the stairs to join the conversation. “I can’t miss a day. Luke is going to read ahead in the book, and if I miss today then I’ll be confused next time I come!”

If you ask Julie, she thinks that her brother will survive. But between Carlos’s begging eyes, and her dad’s hands folded together in a plea for her help, she doesn’t have any more fight left in her. 

“Fine. When are we leaving?”

Carlos checks the time on the oven clock. 

“Well, he starts at noon, so right now!”

Julie turns on her phone to check the time -- 11:46 AM. 

She’s brushed her teeth and washed her face, but she still has her hair in twin braids, is wearing her glasses, and changed out of her pajamas only to put on a different pair of pajamas. 

“Wait- Carlos! I have to get ready!”

But her brother is already shutting the front door behind him. Desperate, she whirls around to face Ray for a little support, but he only gives her a head shake and a “forget about it” hand gesture. 

“You look great, mija. And don’t worry. You’re just going to a library. Nobody important will be there.”

Frustrated at the realization that she’s fighting a losing battle, she dejectedly swipes the car keys out from under the stack of mail on the dining room table and stalks out the front door. 

_ Dad’s right, _ she assures herself. _ It’s just the library. No one important will be there. _

\--

Luke is reading  _ Scaredy Squirrel _ to a group of first and second-graders when he starts to notice the crowd for his 12 PM session gather in the kid’s books section; trying and failing to be subtle about the fact that they are waiting for him. 

“ _ P.S. _ ,” he says, mockingly leaning forward towards his kids as if he is sharing a secret, “a _ s for the emergency kit, Scaredy _ …”

That’s when he sees her walk in. 

That’s when he sees her,  _ Julie freaking Molina, _ the girl he’s been embarrassingly into for the last six months, walking through the entrance with an excited younger boy by her side. 

And that boy, who Luke recognizes as one of his Sunday regulars, tugs on the beautiful girl’s hand and points right to him. 

While he’s holding a copy of  _ Scaredy Squirrel _ . And, he remembers, still has a line to finish. 

Even though his eyes continually flicker between Julie --  _ who, oh my God, is wearing her glasses, Luke could scream _ \-- and the eager children in front of him, he manages to finish the line. 

“ _ As for the emergency kit, Scaredy Squirrel is in no hurry to pick it up just yet,” _ he smirks, holding the book out closer to their faces and pointing to the small white box smothered in a bush of poison ivy in the corner of the page. Luckily, the joke lands, and handfuls of muted childish giggles ring out across his audience. “The end! Thank you all for being such a rockin’ audience, and I hope you all come back next week.”

Little voices reciting “thank you” hit his ears, but don’t quite register in his brain, because he can see Julie’s brother but he can’t see Julie and he  _ needs _ to see her to convince himself that she was actually there. 

He is clearly and obviously scanning through the groups of parents and kids to find her, and finally, he does.    
  
She’s hunched over at one of the library’s desks, with a textbook on an unknown topic open flat in front of her as she scribbles in a journal off to her right. Her hair is in these cute braids he’s never seen her wear to school before, and she’s got on her glasses (HER GLASSES!!!) that she has to keep pushing back up her nose.

He hasn’t even switched out his books from  _ Scaredy Squirrel _ to _ Wonder _ , when suddenly the older crowd is seated in front of him and one of the kids is calling out his name.

“Hey, Luke!”

When he looks down, it’s Carlos holding a fist up for a bump. Julie’s brother. 

(Luke quickly glances back up to Julie, who has apparently looked up at him upon hearing his name, and they share a millisecond of charged eye contact before he focuses back on the boy in front of him.)

((You know that tension when you see someone your age in public? Well, for Luke, multiply that by three -- once for someone his age, two for recognizing her, and three for being halfway in love with her.))

Grinning, he returns the fistbump, suddenly feeling crushing pressure to make a good impression. 

“Hey, Carlos! How’s it going? What’s up at school?”

“Nothing as interesting as this,” the fifth grader sighs. 

“Hey, I know the feeling,” Luke offers, resulting in him and Carlos sharing a small chuckle. Finally, he has the proper book in his hands, and holds it in his lap before looking up to face all of the kids. “I’m going to do 40 minutes of reading, and then the last 20 minutes is going to be freestyle song time. Did you guys bring some requests for me?” 

Excited heads bob up and down. 

“Epic. Get comfy, we left off on page 54, and August was hanging out with Summer.”

And, with significantly more pressure to perform well -- which is greatly foreign to him as an aspiring rockstar -- he begins.

\--

_ Don’t worry, _ they said.  _ Nobody important will be there, _ they said. 

Tell that to Julie when Luke Patterson -- the guy that Julie’s been crushing on since the beginning of the year -- sitting in all his hot-guitarist glory, reading to a group of children like the catch he is. 

When Julie first saw him after Carlos eagerly singled her peer out as the guy that has become a fixture in his life for the past months, her heart thrummed achingly against her ribcage. With her appearance momentarily forgotten, she gazed at the familiar green eyes that always know how to make her bend at their will as they instead adoringly looked upon an audience of little kids. 

Just last Friday, he had used the magnetic power of his eyes on her when he asked for a pencil. 

(She hadn’t noticed the one that he had hidden under his notebook, pretending that he didn’t have it.)

She purposely took a seat at a desk close to the kids’ area where she could face Luke’s storytime as an unofficial member of the audience. It’s hard focusing on her calculus notes when a cute guy is reading aloud 15 feet away, but she manages. And when she hears her brother talking to Luke, she can’t help but indulge herself in taking a peak -- but is met with the sight of his eyes staring back at her. 

(Oh my God. This gets more embarrassing with every passing second. He recognizes her.)

Julie tunes in and out of his reading, but when he puts the book down and picks up an acoustic guitar for “freestyle song time,” she literally finds herself just looking blankly at the problem on the page as she focuses on what Luke is saying. 

“Okay, the moment you’ve all been waiting for -- who brought their requests?”

Most of the kids’ hands respectfully shoot up into the air for Luke to call on them. She wonders if Carlos is one of them, but doesn’t look up to see. 

“Okay, Alyssa, you first.”

“Sing about checking out books!”

“I can definitely do that. Gimme one second.”

Giving into temptation, Julie briefly glances upwards at Luke, who now has the guitar in his lap and has his fingers on the strings like he is waiting for something. 

(What is he doing?)

Her question is soon answered when she hears the familiar riff to  _ Dream On _ reverberating from the corner of the library. After a few chords, Luke starts to sing at low volume; taking Julie completely by surprise. 

She’s heard him sing in music class, and she knows he’s in a band, but like… He really uses his voice to sing little songs to these kids every week? 

(Someone call Ray. If she tells him all of this, he’ll give her permission to marry Luke at 16 years old in a heartbeat.)

((Not really. But this would all make a very good impression.))

And, to make her stomach flip even more, he’s singing this parody to  _ Dream On _ with lyrics that she is pretty sure he is coming up with on the spot. It’s some amusing nonsense about how to check out a book at the library, with the chorus saying “check out” instead of “dream on.” Luke doesn’t sing the entire song, obviously, but what he comes up with leaves Julie speechless. 

Light claps ring out for a short moment before the hands are raised once again. 

“Hmm… Carlos! What’d you got for me, little man?”

“Sing about writing songs.”

Julie’s brow furrows, and she can only imagine Luke looks the same. 

“That’s a new one! How’d you come up with that?” 

“I know a lot of people who like to write songs. You, my mom, my sister…”

Her mom.  _ Oh, _ Carlos brought up their mom. Their mom who died a year and a half ago. The mention of Rose Molina distracts Julie from her romantic heartache and pokes her with grief instead, and she almost misses Luke’s response. 

“Wow, you have a musical family! Do you like writing songs?”

“No,” Carlos shakes his head, “that’s more of my sister’s thing. Her and my mom used to do it a lot.”

Julie dares to look up again, fearful that Carlos is about to rehash the topic of their deceased mother to the guy she has a raging crush on, but Luke’s eyes are already on her with a smile. 

“Well, then you gotta tell your sister I did this. Maybe she’ll come with you one day and judge my improvised songwriting skills.”

( _ Hey, where’s Julie? _ Oh, I think she crawled into that hole over there and died.)

Anticipating Carlos’s response to Luke’s comment, she bends over to rummage around in her backpack for nothing. She just moves her hands around the bag and waits for her torture to end. 

“She’s here!” Her brother says, as expected. He’s probably pointing at her right now. “But she’s studying, so she’s probably not paying attention.”

“Bummer,” Luke sighs, and she can hear the smirk in his voice. If she weren’t miserable right now, she would be busy calming the heat in her stomach that always flares when she sees him smirk. 

The conversation ends as Luke thinks of a song to parody, and Julie takes it as her moment to slowly sit up straight again. She is desperately trying to control the urge that she has to look over at him, and for the most part is successful; excluding the time he hit the chorus of the song that she didn’t recognize the tune of. For that moment, he had brought out the rockstar voice that she was familiar with from class, and felt obligated to watch it like it was a performance assignment in their classroom. 

They were both in the Los Feliz High School audition-only music program, and have been for the last three years. She hadn’t had a class with him until this year; although, she had noticed him in the halls well before then. 

Luke strutted the halls like he owned each building he was walking around. His charm was undeniable, his talent was palpable, and while many viewed his attitude as annoying, Julie appreciated a teenage boy who was sure of himself and what he wanted to do. He was a badass who wasn’t afraid of things. 

What can she say? Confidence is attractive. Combine that with genuine kindness, raw talent, and pretty eyes, he was the perfect storm that swept Julie up in it’s chaos.    
  


“Okay guys, that’s a wrap for today! For those of you who come in on Wednesdays, we’ll be starting _ Out of My Mind _ , and I’ll sing to you some more. Sound good?”

A chorus of “yes” is sung by his audience. 

“Awesome. Have a great day everyone. Thank you for being such a cool audience.”

His closing sounds like he’s saying his final goodbyes to his audience at a concert, which makes Julie grin without thinking about it. He’s a natural performer. 

Carlos is suddenly interrupting her thoughts by telling her that the show’s over, and it’s time to pack up and go home. Stealing another quick look at Luke while trying to avoid her brother noticing, she arranges her journals in her backpack and hoists her textbook into her arms. 

“Okay, we can head out.”

Her and Carlos start to walk towards the exit, but she can’t help but glance once more back at Luke -- who is already looking at her. 

How does he do that? Does he have some kind of sixth sense?

Like a deer in the headlights, Julie freezes, and can’t find it in herself to look away. Thankfully, he makes the first move for her: Raising his hand off of the neck of the guitar in a small two-fingered salute. If she watched really closely, he was giving her a shy smile. 

Relief floods her, and her shock thaws. Mirroring him, she unwraps her right hand from her textbook to repeat the wave, and her brother ushering her out of the library is what cuts her off. 

“Hey, Carlos,” she says in the car while trying to sound subtle, “you come on Wednesdays too, right? That’s when that guy is there?”

“Yeah. Luke reads to us on Sundays and Wednesdays.”

“Cool, cool… Do you, maybe, wanna come back Wednesday?”

\--   
  


Monday morning, Luke was still kicking himself for the pathetic salute he sent to Julie as she was leaving the library.

“Think of it this way,” Reggie tried to reason with him as he walked down the hall with the band, “at least you waved at her!”

Alex and Bobby both point at Reggie in agreement. 

“Yeah, dude! You could have totally ignored her. That woulda been way worse.” 

“And maybe you can talk to her in class later today!” Alex says after Bobby, who has laid a comforting hand on Luke’s shoulder. “Like, invite her back sometime during your shift.”

“During my shift when I’m busy working and can’t pay her any attention? Great ide-”

A familiar laugh is heard down the hall, and Luke focuses his eyes on the source: Julie. 

(Don’t fucking bring up the fact that he is literally tuned into the sound of her laugh. Or her voice. Just- Leave him alone. He’s in enough distress as it is right now.)

She looks just as pretty as she did the day before; only today only the front strands of her hair are tied back, she’s got high-waisted jeans on, and a cropped sweatshirt. Her signature doodled-on sneakers adorn her feet, and she’s clearly laughing at something that her best friend, Flynn, said. 

“Oh my God, you’re such a simp,” Bobby groans. Luke is tempted to give him a wet willy if there wasn’t the overlying possibility that Julie could look up and see him doing it. 

“Who’s a simp? Luke again?”

Speaking of wet willies -- the real-life Willie, Alex’s boyfriend, has popped up beside their clan to give his beau a kiss on the cheek. Reggie, Alex and Bobby all nod to respond to Willie’s question while gesturing to the girl down the hall. 

“Ah, Julie again,” Willie grins. “I feel like I already know what the answer is, because it’s the same every time, but -- any updates on that situation?”

Before Luke even has the chance to respond -- which he wouldn’t have done, because he’s trying to non-creepily watch Julie text someone on her phone while talking to Flynn -- Reggie jumps in. 

“Julie came into the library yesterday while Luke was with the kids. Apparently, one of his regulars is her little brother, so she just sat and studied for an hour while he did his thing.”

Willie gives Luke a joyous clap on the back. 

“Luke, that’s rad! Now she knows you work there!”   
  
“No, it is very  _ not _ rad, I just waved at her like an idiot.”

“Better than nothing! At least she was there. You’ve liked Julie since-”

At this point, Willie decides to stop using his “talking-about-a-friend’s-crush” voice, because Julie whirls around to search for whoever said her name. Luke, who has been glancing at her almost the entire time, catches her eye as she scans the group of Sunset Curve boys. 

“Hey Julie!” Reggie calls out, friendly as ever. The rest of the boys follow:   
  
_ “Hi Julie!” _

Flynn is looking at the band with wide eyes, flickering her focus between Julie and them in a clear “what the fuck is going on?” But Julie is giving them a shy -- dare Luke say it, flirty -- smile, accompanied by a little wave reminiscent of the one he got in the library the day before. 

If Luke was as close to Julie as he wishes he was right now, he would see her light pink flush. 

And then the school bell rings, taking all parties’ attention away from the current situation, and Julie throws them one more, more confident, smile as Flynn pulls her into the music room. 

“See you boys in a few minutes!”

Bobby aggressively elbows Luke in the stomach to cue a response. 

“Ow, fuck off!” He hisses, before looking back up to his crush. “Yeah, see you in a few!”

(That was definitely not one of his finest moments. If anything, it probably doesn’t even rank on that list. Just add it into the anthology of  _ Dumb Shit Luke Has Done Because Julie Molina Smiled At Him _ , which includes dropping his guitar during music class, tripping on the staircase in the cafeteria, and writing her name randomly as the answer to a test during math.)

Him and the boys shuffle in behind the other students also in their music class, and Luke can’t help but charge towards his usual chair that is right behind Julie. Alex is on his left and Bobby is on his right, with Reggie sitting next to Alex and socializing with Kayla. Flynn keeps sending Julie a very suspicious look, and Luke doesn’t miss the way that her eyes occasionally shift to him. 

It makes him squirm in his chair. 

“Dude, stop staring at her hair and say something,” Alex whispers in his ear. 

His suggestion is completely logical and fair, and in the interest of his best friend. 

Unfortunately, Luke doesn’t see it that way. 

“What do I even say? I asked her for a pencil three times last week.”

“Okay.” Alex angles himself more towards Luke, resting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “What if -- I know it sounds crazy -- but what if you just said ‘hey, Julie. It was cool seeing you at the library yesterday.’ That’s it.”

It does sound crazy, actually. 

Luke Patterson is confident about many things -- his skills as a guitarist, the future of Sunset Curve, and that his arms looked good in a sleeveless shirt -- but anything related to Julie Molina renders him speechless. 

Because if he’s fully confident of anything, it’s that Julie Molina is the daughter of the sun: Bright, powerful, intimidating, and radiant. 

She’s too bright for him or any of these other students in their music class. She outshines every one of them with her voice and her smile and joy. It’s how he fell in l- 

_ Like _ . It’s how he started to like her. 

But with liking her also comes with an all-encompassing fear of fucking everything up. He’s on edge that one wrong move could very possibly influence her to never speak to him again. Unfortunately, he has the habit of unintentionally saying and doing the completely wrong thing.

But fortunately, Miss Harrison saved him from any more pressure to start a conversation, and allowed him to continue starting at the back of Julie’s head in peace. 

“Okay, everyone! Welcome back. I hope you have been having good days so far, and to get started, I am going to pair you up to go over the sheet music for this Friday’s presentation.” Miss Harrison positions herself in front of them, scanning over her students to figure out how she wants to randomly assign their partners. “Hmm… First row, turn around, and the person behind you in the second row is your partner. Third row, do the same with the fourth row. You have ten minutes to help each other, and then we’ll all come back together. Capice?”

The rest of the class agrees to the conditions and nod their heads. Or, at least, Luke thinks they do -- he’s a little too distracted by Julie turning around to face him.

They’re partners.

Alex starts subtly coughing in Luke's ear.  _ “Karma’s a bitch.” _

“Fuck off.”

Julie raises a questioning eyebrow. “Somebody’s feeling friendly today.”

(Oh God, oh fuck, did he really just say that in front of his crush yes he did of course he did he’s an idiot-)

He winces. He doesn’t even hide it. 

“Yeah. Sorry. Alex was just messing with me.”

“Right,” she nods, glancing down at his anxiously bouncing left leg and hands nervously squeezing the rabbits foot dangling from his jeans. “Wanna go into the hall and work this out?”

The hall. More private. Yes, yes he does. 

Jaw slack, he slowly moves his head up and down. “Yeah,” he smiles. “Yeah. That sounds good.”

“Cool.” She’s perked up, and as she rises to stand up from her chair, her hand appears in front of his face. Julie’s holding it out, offering it to him. And for a moment too long, he just stares at it -- tempting him to take it, but a part of him feels like he isn’t actually supposed to take it, but if she didn’t want him to take it then why would she offer, but he wants to take it so badly-

“Luke?” 

The hand waves in front of his face, trailing him away from his scattered thoughts. She’s looking at him with amusement, and in that second, Luke doesn’t care that he’s acting like an idiot because he’s making her smile. 

“Sorry. I’m just a little out of it today. Let’s go.”

She doesn’t move her hand. With one last look as his teeth scrape his bottom lip, he slips his left hand into her right and feels his heart stutter. 

Her hand is so soft.

(That’s so creepy, dude, oh my God!)

((But it is really soft.))

After a few uneven beats as she pulls him around the classroom chairs and towards the entrance, his heart finds an even pace -- even if it’s a much, much faster pace. It feels like something has fallen into place. Like when he’s on stage, and so excited to be there and his heart races, but he knows it’s where he belongs. 

Holding Julie’s hand is suddenly the equivalent to being on a stage. He should have assumed he was in that deep sooner. 

“Be quiet out there you two! Don’t disturb other classes!” Miss Harrison calls out behind them when she catches the pair sneaking into the hallway. Julie shoots their teacher a thumbs-up, but Luke doesn’t even dare look up because he knows she’ll be able to see the flush on his cheeks as Julie’s fingers tighten around his. 

A few minutes pass and Luke gets comfortable sitting next to Julie against the lockers. Sure, he keeps getting distracted by her mouth moving and her voice when she talks, but he likes to think he’s keeping it together pretty impressively. 

They’re so close, so like, what is he supposed to do? Focus?  _ Not _ enjoy the moment?

She stops talking, and he was kind of following along with what she was saying, so he nods along. Any idea she has is guaranteed to be killer. “Cool, that sounds good.”

They both pull out their sheet music and he watches as she pulls a pencil from her small bag of pens and other little utensils. And it's then that he realizes that he, legitimately, forgot to bring his pencil into the hall with them. 

“Uh,” he starts, “do you have any extra pencils in there? I left mine in class.”

The smile that falls on her face gives him butterflies. 

“You ask me for pencils a lot,” she comments as she starts digging through her bag. “I’m starting to worry it’s a joke I’m not in on.”

This is the kind of situation where Luke’s stutter has the habit of popping in. “No! No, i-i-it’s not a joke. I-I-I just, I’m n-not good at making c-conversation sometimes.”

His face is probably as bright red as it feels, but Julie doesn’t comment on it or laugh at him or anything as she offers him the pencil. She just gives him a comforting grin. 

“So… It’s you trying to talk to me?”

It sounds so dumb when he hears it out loud.

(But Julie’s heart feels like it is soaring.)

To account for his embarrassment, Luke tries to meet her eyes and nod his head. 

“I never thought I’d ever see you so stunned into silence,” she giggles. “You’re normally so confident. If I knew you wanted to talk to me, I would have made more of an effort.”

_ Oh, God, she’s such an angel it makes his chest hurt.  _

He finds himself leaning towards her as he vigorously shakes his head. “No! No, don’t worry about that. I am just…  _ Really  _ bad at talking to girls like you, I swear.”

“Girls like me?”

(AKSDJLDKHDS  _ WHY DID HE SAY THAT? _ WHY DID HE SAY THAT? WHY DID WE LET HIM SAY THAT? Somebody get Luke the shovel. He needs to start digging his grave.)

Thankfully -- or is it -- Miss Harrison decides to make her presence known, and clears her throat behind the two of them. 

“Hey, we’re reeling it back in, so if you two could be in your seats in a moment, that would be wonderful. Thank you.”

_ “Thanks Miss Harrison,” _ the two teenagers mumble, both of their minds completely elsewhere as they rise to stand up and go back to class. They take one look at each other and bolt back into the room without a second thought, because neither of them were ready for where that conversation was about to go. 

For the rest of class, Luke is focused on the back of Julie’s head. There’s a lot he wants to say. 

And when there’s a few minutes left, he realizes that he still has Julie’s pencil. Luke is too impulsive to convince himself that what he’s about to do is a bad idea, so he scribbles out a note, tapes it around the pencil, and taps Julie on the back of her shoulder. 

“Hey, uh,” he holds out the pencil with the paper wrapped around it, “thanks for letting me borrow this. I’ll try to remember my own writing utensils from now on.”

“Don’t worry about it. As long as you give them back, I’m fine being your supplier.”

He’s flooded with giddy relief at her little smile, but panics when her eyes clearly catch on the paper. The bell rings, so Luke shoots out of his chair as soon as possible when he sees Julie unraveling the note. 

_ “girls like you”: _

_ beautiful _

_ insanely talented _

_ really smart _

_ sweet _

\--

Julie comes back to the library with Carlos that Wednesday. The note from Luke is tucked away in her dreambox, and she’s looked at it for the past two nights before bed. 

The idea that this is how he sees her, that this is what goes through his head when he looks at her, is almost entirely unbelievable. When she showed it to Flynn, she presented it with the idea that the handwriting was so terrible that she might not even be reading it correctly -- it was too complimentary for it to be true. 

But neither her, nor Flynn, could come up with anything else. 

So it was official: Luke Patterson,  _ Luke freaking Patterson _ , who she has liked for months, thought she was pretty, kind, smart, and talented.

Whenever she thought about it, it felt like helium was coursing through her veins. Would it be presumptuous to think he liked her back? Or was it a relatively clear indication that he was interested?   
  
(To him, it was as clear as he could get without pulling out his songbook and showing her the love songs that coat the pages. And there were a lot.)

So, just to see him again -- even though she caught his eye at school a few times -- she brings Carlos to the library again. The assignment she is doing is more of a copy and paste kind of thing, so she allows her attentions to fall on the sound of Luke’s voice and the way he intently reads each line for each character. 

She knows that he’s aware she’s there, because sometimes, when she looks up from her papers and admires the small smile on his face he gets at the kids’ reactions, he will meet her gaze. 

  
And she doesn’t turn away. She’ll smile, or wave, or acknowledge him somehow just to see the way his mouth stretches into an even wider grin. 

(Is this flirting?)

When he’s done, she packs her things up, and strategically abandons a blue mechanical pencil at the spot where she was sitting. He calls out her name, asks her how she liked the show, and then invites her to one of his band gigs that Friday night. 

Carlos nags her about her boyfriend on the car ride home. 

Luke is in music with the blue pencil the next day.

\--

When she shows up at the gig with Flynn on her arm, Sunset Curve is just heading onstage. 

“Julie! Flynn!” 

The person calling out to them sounds extremely familiar, and their suspicions are confirmed when a smiling Willie is quickly approaching and wrapping his friendly arms around them in a hug as if they have been friends for ages. They return his smiley greeting, and he suggestively nods towards the stage. 

“You’re here for Patterson, right?” Almost too bashful to answer, she grins and looks down to her feet. To answer the question, Flynn nods as she pinches Julie’s arm. “Cool. We’re so happy you guys came. He was pacing backstage on like, Alex’s level of pacing. Which- You probably don’t know what that means. Know it’s intense.”

Julie, suddenly inundated with the information that Luke took her presence there seriously, slowly bobs her head up and down. “Duly noted. I’m- I’m really glad he invited me. It’s gonna be cool to see him in his element.”

The crowd in the restaurant begins clapping animatedly, which draws their attention towards their peers onstage. 

It doesn’t pass Julie’s observation when Alex kisses the end of his drumstick and points it directly at Willie, like he’s blowing a little kiss. The action makes her heart melt -- who in the world is lucky enough to have a precious relationship the likes of these two?

And then her eyes land on Luke. 

Who is looking right back at her, with a grin on his face brighter than she has ever known. 

While she has his attention, she cheers right at him -- cupping her hands over her mouth and yelling out to him, clapping her hands soon after to join the rest of the audience. 

“Thank you guys so much for coming out tonight,” Luke starts, already breathless. “We’ve got a lot of fun planned. So, to kick us off, a personal favorite -- this is Now Or Never.”

As he starts, Julie doesn’t know if she has ever seen Luke so alive before. The way his fingers run along the guitar strings effortlessly, like they belong there, makes the room feel electric. The whole band is great, but Luke is Luke. His voice is raspy and growls significantly more than he can show off in class, and she decides in that moment that she likes this Luke. 

A lot. 

He is confident and contagious and his lyrics are beyond what she ever imagined. And the audience clearly feels the same way -- a quick glance away from Luke reveals hordes of people looking adoringly onstage as she is sure she is as well. 

She’s just one of the many. 

But then he looks at her during _ Long Weekend _ , and he winks at the line  _ “I wanna take a long weekend with you, tell you everything under the midnight blue,”  _ and in that moment it at least feels like she’s the one he cares about. 

After the show, Willie ushers both her and Flynn backstage, where the boys are cooling off in a small greenroom in the back of the venue. Flynn mumbles something in her ear about “VIP treatment” and how Luke “must be really into” her, which she chooses to ignore. 

(You can never get your hopes up. Teenage boys are dangerous.)

But as soon as she locks eyes with him, he doesn’t feel dangerous at all. 

Because he instantly runs up and throws his arms around her. 

“I’m so glad you came!”

Something in Julie’s chest lifts -- or maybe that’s just her feet being picked up off the ground -- as she laughs into his ear and latches her arms around his neck without any hesitation. “It’s definitely different from the library,” she giggles into his ear as he returns her to solid ground. “You guys were amazing. Why don’t you do more of that at school?”

As Flynn and Willie go to talk to Alex, Reggie and Bobby, Luke and Julie are left secluded in the corner by the door. Luke bashfully looks down at his feet. 

“I used to try, but… Miss Harrison encouraged us to take it down a notch.” Nervously, he rubs the back of his neck. “And, uh… Good different or bad different?”

Julie’s eyebrows furrow. “Hmm?”

“From the library,” he clarifies. “You said it was different from the library. I know it’s not a very quiet environment, or improvised on an acoustic, but-”

(Oh. My God. This is so precious. He really thinks she’s going to like “Library Luke” over “Rockstar Luke”? As if there is truly a difference? They are all Luke. There’s no way she couldn’t adore them.)

“The best different.” He sighs with relief. “It’s all you, just… In different fonts. Or variations of fonts. And I like them all so far.”

“Variations of fonts?”

Yeah, it’s a weird analogy. Why the hell did she think it was cute to say again?

“Like… You at the library is italicized Luke, you at school is underlined, and you here is bolded. And underlined. Both.”

“... And you like them all?”

(What a sweet, perfect idiot he is.)

She simply hums back to him with a blinding grin on her face; wondering how in the world she’s found herself backstage with Luke at one of his shows while he anxiously asks for her opinion on himself. 

“I like that font thing,” he tells her after a moment of them gazing at each other cluelessly. “Kind of a fun way of thinking about things.”

“What kinds of fonts am I?” 

Trying to be smooth, he takes a miniscule step in her direction; definitely in her personal space bubble. She welcomes him in. “You’re… You’re bold, italicized, and underlined all of the time. You’re always you. Perfect, no matter what.”

“Perfect?” The word catches in her throat. Luke’s eyes widen, like he meant it but never meant to actually say it -- they only became close friends this week after all -- but he also knows he can’t take it back. 

But before the conversation can go anywhere good, Bobby is practically jumping on Luke’s back.

“Dude, I’m so happy you’re making progress over here, but the stagehand just told us we’ve got ten minutes to get the hell out, so I think we gotta start packing up the van.”

“Oh, what can I help with?” Julie is quick to jump in, eyes flitting between Luke (whose jaw has dropped) and Bobby (who is smiling). 

“Nothing, Jules, you don’t need to-”

“The more hands the better!” Reggie calls out, and Julie notices Flynn rolling up her sleeves. Luke shoots the bassist a glare, but the receiver just shrugs. “Dude, the more time you’re spending arguing with us is more time wasted on packup, and then we’ll  _ really _ need Julie and Flynn.”

One look at Luke’s face tells Julie that he knows his bandmates are right. Plus, she’s truly happy to help -- it makes her feel a little like a roadie. Kind of a fun thought. 

“Really, it’s no big deal. What can we do?”

The guitarist shoots her the puppy dog eyes that she’s seen him use on teachers to get out of assignments, and on classmates to help him with homework. She’s a bit shocked to be on the receiving end of it for the first time, until his mouth stretches into a grin, and his fingers nudge hers. “Thanks, Julie.”

Blushing, she looks down at their brushing hands. 

“Anytime. Now, what can we start?”

\--

Julie doesn’t offer to take Carlos to the library on Sunday. Nothing bad happened with her and Luke -- God, her and Luke, what a concept -- but she just saw him on Friday, and she doesn’t want to seem…

Obsessed. 

But on Monday morning, Luke finds her himself -- hilariously enough, in the school library. 

“Printing something here, minutes before it’s due, when you could have come to the library yesterday and taken care of it while I sang in the background? I’m starting to think I did something wrong.”

(Oh my God, is  _ he _ the one that’s obsessed? If she was not too concerned about coming across insane, then she definitely would have come to the library… Is he saying he wanted to see her at the library? Holy shit.)

Turning around with a smile, Julie finds Luke leaning against a desk behind the row of desktop computers. “Well, I needed you to have something to look forward to today, didn’t I?”

“I would have looked forward to seeing you today just as much if you came to the library yesterday.”

Pretending to be coy, but really turning away so that he doesn’t see her blush, Julie faces her computer once again and selects the printer icon on her document. “Sounds like you missed me a lot.” It’s not her best response, but she feels like she is standing under a heat lamp with his blatant flirting, and her reaction is simple deflection. “Maybe I needed a Luke break.”

(Oh God, Julie, I thought we went over the fact that insulting men as a response to their kindness was a toxic trait.)

((Not me projecting-))

But Luke is not easily shaken. Well, maybe he was for a moment, but she was too busy fixating on a single pixel in the screen to think about his reaction. Within seconds, however, he is sliding into the open chair at the computer next to her. 

“Well… Is the Luke break over? Because I  _ did _ miss you.”

(FINALLY! A man who is a match for her mind!)

((Julie looks back on this moment realizing she was probably in love with him then and there. But at the time, it just feels like a feeling in her heart that has been kicked into overdrive at the thought of him wanting her around.))

“Do you ever say this kind of stuff in front of your friends? And do they give you shit for it?”

“They’ve known longer than you have,” he tells her, and it feels like an acknowledgement of feelings that are still unsaid. “If they knew I just said all that to you without stuttering a single time, they would throw me a party.”

“Want me to tell them? Just so we have a reason to party?”

“I want you to come to the library on Wednesday.”

“Done. My dad loves not having to drive Carlos.”

Luke leans back, and blinks at her, like he didn’t expect it to be that easy. But the smile that forms on his face is priceless.

It recalls a memory of the early days in her crush on him, when she was solely focused on his defined arms and puppy dog eyes and _ perfect smile _ , as she described it to Flynn. Up close, as the recipient, it is even more perfect than when she oogled it from afar. She feels like she has won a prize. 

“Speaking of Wednesday,” she starts, clicking the confirmation button on her printing request, “do you work any days other than Wednesday and Sunday?”

The two of them stand in unison to go and retrieve Julie’s essay from the library printer. They give the librarian a sweet good morning; proceeding to stand in front of the roaring machine on the counter.

“Saturdays, but I don’t read. They let me just stock shelves and make displays because we have gigs on Fridays.”

Julie nods, picking the papers as each of them print. “And if I needed a book this weekend… What time would I find you there? Y’know, just so you don’t miss me too much.”

Teasingly, as the final page pops from the printer, Luke swipes it before Julie can add it to her small stack. 

“Noon to 4,” he informs her with a warm grin. “... Do you need a book this weekend?”

Julie reaches out for the stray paper in his clutches, but he’s got too many inches on her, and when he swings his arm away from her the page is only farther out of reach. She can’t help but work herself into his personal space; positioning herself directly in front of them so that their chests are almost touching as she reaches after her paper.

(The librarian is definitely eyeing the pair, thinking they’re recently started dating. So is everyone in the library.)

“I don’t know. I haven’t decided. Maybe be nice this week and I’ll need a book, _ and  _ my dad will need me to bring Carlos on Sunday.”

Such a small temptation to anybody else -- but to Luke Patterson, it’s everything. 

Without hesitation, he returns the page. 

\--

Come Saturday, Luke is roaming the rows of shelves with a cart full of nonfiction books ranging from the topics of American presidents to animals of South America. His earbuds are dangling from his ears with an Oasis song blaring through each tiny speaker, audible to anybody passing by.

(He’s using the music as a distraction from worrying about when Julie may, or may not, show up.)

It’s 3:38, and he’s scanning the shelf for the proper place for a book about climate change, when he feels a hesitant, soft tap on his shoulder. When he whirls around, his heart kicks uneasily in his chest because the girl in front of him has curly brown hair that surrounds her like a halo, and glowing brown skin, and eyes that he has spent too much time wishing he could see this close. 

Julie showed up. 

And she’s right in front of him, smiling shyly like she feels bad for interrupting his jam session. Luke fumbles to rip the earbuds from his ears and lets his mouth stretch into a completely lovestruck smile and  _ she showed up.  _

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she starts out, clearly joking as she turns over the book in her hands. “But every other librarian is busy-” When Luke looks, his coworkers are all sitting at the desks on computers, waiting for curious customers to help. “And I was wondering if you could help me check this out? I’ve never done it before.”

_ She’s so cute.  _

The thought is not uncommon for him to have, but this time it unleashes itself so loudly in his brain that he almost worries he’s said it out loud. He comes close to saying it to her out loud, too, but doesn’t -- to keep himself from doing so, Luke takes his bottom lip between his teeth as he looks adoringly at the girl in front of him.    
  


He really shouldn’t abandon the cart -- he really shouldn’t -- but he’ll be back soon. And all of the books have been checked in. 

  
And he really, really just wants to be with Julie.

“Of course. I’m happy to help. Follow me, Miss.”

Julie chuckles at his formality -- Luke even thinks he catches a quiet snort -- and walks alongside him as he brings her towards the checkout stations. 

He points to the book in her hands. “Is- Is that for Mr. Johnson’s next unit?”

(So he knows her English teacher? Big deal.)

“Yeah,” Julie nods, staring at the book with disdain. “The Shakespeare units are always the worst.”

“You can say that again.”  _ Quick. Think of something flirty to say.  _ “I thought they had those books in the school library.”

“And I thought you missed me,” she quips back. Luke thinks his heart stops. “And now I’ll just have to keep coming back to renew it.”

They approach the checkout stand, and he holds his hand out for the book. The touch-screen has clear directions to guide a visitor along through the checkout, and they both know that, but when Julie hands him the book and his fingers overlap with hers he cannot find it in himself to care. “Well-played, Molina.” He starts clicking around the screen and notices her watching him intently. “And you were right. I did miss you.”

A quick scan later: The book is Julie’s for two weeks. 

“Thank you so much,” she praises him when he’s handing the book back to her. “That whole process was just  _ so _ complicated. I have a theory that you guys have so little to do that you purposely make it absolutely impossible for us to check things out and then you get to help us.”

“How else do you think we get to talk to the pretty girls that come in?”

(Point: Luke. Julie blushes and drops her eyes from his; squeezing the book so hard that her knuckles are bleaching.)

“So,” Luke starts, unsure of how to keep her around but desperately wanting to do so. “Now that you’ve got your book, what are your plans?”

Julie taps her chin, once again finding the strength to play along. “Well, I was going to go and get coffee… But now I’m realizing my memory is super fuzzy on the Dewey Decimal System. I might go to the nonfiction section and work it out before I go.”

“That’s funny, because I was just going back to the nonfiction section to start shelving books. If you need a refresher… I could totally help. And I am desperately going to need a cup of coffee when my shift is over.”

“Then… Maybe you could join me. Since we’re going in the same direction, obviously.”

_ “Obviously.” _

After he speaks, the two of them fall into one of the most comfortably uncomfortable silences that Luke has ever felt. They are both thinking the same thing: 

That was flirting. They were flirting with each other because they like each other, and they are pretty sure they just agreed to go on a date, and Luke wants to call the guys and gush about how well he just did in holding conversation and managing not to sound like an idiot. And the fact that he’s going on a date with _ Julie Molina. _

(His heart rate kicks up just at the thought of  _ date _ and  _ Julie Molina _ being spoken in the same sentence. He’ll definitely go home and say it a hundred thousand times.)

“So, uh,” Julie breaks the silence, “wanna head back to shelve books? I don’t want to get you in trouble for being distracted or anything-”

“They’ll understand,” Luke insists without hesitation, because he knows it’s true. He may be distracted, but the three head librarians are like a group of his second mothers. And if they knew he was currently scoring a date with the most amazing girl any of them could be lucky enough to know, then they would be perfectly okay if a few books didn’t get shelved today while he was busy helping her. “But yeah. If you’re there, the next ten minutes will go by a lot faster.”

In a bold move, while she smiles at his previous comment, he holds out his hand reminiscent of the way that she did to him while they were at school weeks before. 

A beat passes as she stares at it -- but she takes it soon after. 

And he’s dragging her back to the shelves with the joy in his chest like he’s just won a first place trophy.

\--

In the weeks that follow, everything is the same, but it is all different at the same time. 

Luke and Julie go to coffee, and then they do it again. And again after school one day, and once during lunch.

He looks at her in the hallways every day with warmth in his chest, but this time he isn’t at the other end of the hall filled with wishes and hopes and unfinished songs. He’s right by her side, and his hand is wrapped up in hers like it has always wanted to be, and his songs are all finished. 

(She just hasn’t seen them yet.)

Julie goes to two more shows, and comes to the library almost every day he works. After their fifth coffee date, on a Saturday, Julie casually brings up that the movie theater a couple blocks away is showing one of her favorite movies, _ Casablanca _ , the next weekend. He offers to take her.

And just like that, he finds himself watching a black and white film on a Saturday night with a beautiful girl tucked under his arm. 

When they pull up to her house to drop her off (Luke got to borrow his parents’ car for this), he runs around to open her door for her, and the streetlight at the end of the walkway makes her shimmery eyeshadow glow and she’s been so close to him all night so he leans in and kisses her. 

He slides his hands up the sides of her face, pulls her toward him with little force, and takes her mouth in his because after just a second of kissing her he knows that's where it belongs. 

And he knows that she feels the same way, because her fingers are wound furiously into the front of his unbuttoned flannel shirt and when he tries to pull away to give her air, she lifts onto her tiptoes and chases his lips. He excitedly lets her catch them. 

Even though he loves reading to the kids, Saturdays become his favorite days to work. 

(And it’s not just because Carlos is quick to pull Julie out of the library on Wednesdays and Sundays because “I don’t want to watch you flirt with your boyfriend!”)

It’s because he gets Julie all to himself -- as long as he gets all of his work done. 

Sometimes they both arrive before his shift starts so they can sleepily listen to music in the alcove that Luke made his second home; Julie resting between his legs with her head on his chest as they share earbuds. And sometimes, rarely, Julie allows him to coax her between the shelves and press her up against them so that he can kiss her in the quiet of the library. 

(“I’m sorry,” he whispers against her lips while she giggles and playfully pushes them away because, you know, they’re in public. “I just missed you.”)

((He also has a thing for kissing her  _ in the library. _ But we won’t get into that today.))

Eventually, they’ve fallen into a wonderful, unbelievable routine. They eat lunch with all of their friends in one big group, and Carlos gags off to the side whenever Luke approaches her after a reading, and Julie Molina and Luke Patterson are  _ dating _ . 

All because, one day, her father forced her to show up to the library in her pajamas. 

(And because Carlos was way too attached to storytime -- for reasons that Julie didn’t understand before, but definitely does now -- but Julie definitely will never actually give him any credit for it. It’ll go to his head way too quickly.)

\--

When second semester begins, an error in Julie’s schedule results in her registering to be a Library Assistant during her first period. 

After having a nice, long laugh about how Julie likes him so much that she’s adopted his hobbies, Luke kisses her forehead and tells her that not only will it be an easy A, but she’ll kill it because he taught her everything that she knows. 

And he finds himself popping into the school library more than he ever thought he would. 

(He’ll concede that maybe the school library has one thing that the public library can’t constantly provide.)

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!!!!!! happy inauguration week to all my americans. y'all we are almost there.   
> stay safe, healthy, happy and hydrated this week. everything is going to be okay my dears.


End file.
